Getting old :-)

Chip Ordway · **Posted:** Mon Mar 17, 2003 12:05 pm

I laughed and cringed at the comment of another poster about realizing that he was "getting Old" when he read of the last GE U-Boat being preserved.

I myself just turned 28, and spent most of my life up until last year growing up on Long Island. I present a small list of the stuff which I had seen and I took for granted. All have now dissapeared over the years:

LIRR GP-38's
LIRR Frieght
LIRR cabooses
Old style tickets (not gone, but QUICKLY dissapearing thanks to new ticket machines)

Even simple stuff, like the antique depot signs that hung at Woodside until the rebuilding a few years back, or even WEIRD stuff, like the old crossing gate which was so long that it actually FOLDED when it went up. (Location--Oakwood Rd. on The Port Jeff branch...can anyone find me pics of it?)

Yep....I'm getting old, too! I'm in the process of building a full-scale crossing signal in the backyard. Since when did modern companies like SafeTran and WC Hayes make older items like US&S, WRRS, and GRS equipment seem rare and antique?!?!?

What else am I missing?

Pardon me while I go color my graying hair!
Chip

ordway1440@aol.com

David Ackerman · **Posted:** Mon Mar 17, 2003 1:10 pm

I would add to that list Amtrak's once ubiquitous F-40s. They're not disappearing quite yet, but I get the feeling we'll see spartan cabs diassapear within a decade or two. I can think of several lines I've watched disapear, though there are consistent rumors that one might yet see trafic again. (The sticking point is that the middle of it is now a trail, but that may only be a small obstacle.)

Sincerely,
David Ackerman (Hardly old at 29)

david_ackerman@yahoo.com

T.J. Gaffney · **Posted:** Mon Mar 17, 2003 1:34 pm

Yup. I have to agree. For me its the following from the Port Huron area:

GTW GP-9's
GTW & Cabooses (77000-series wood, transfer and the ex-Santa Fe's)
GTW 40-foot boxcars
GTW Port Huron Car Shops
GTW AND C&O St. Clair River carferries
The original (1891) St. Clair River Tunnel
The last GTW semaphore near Black River drawbridge(taken down and given to a GT official in 1997)
C&O carferry idler cars (scrapped in 1996)
Ex-B&O and C&O painted diesels
THE GTW PERIOD!

What I miss most? Tappan Tower, gone over 18 years now. You can see it in the left hand side of the photo below by Chrlie Whipp.

TJG

> I laughed and cringed at the comment of
> another poster about realizing that he was
> "getting Old" when he read of the
> last GE U-Boat being preserved.

> I myself just turned 28, and spent most of
> my life up until last year growing up on
> Long Island. I present a small list of the
> stuff which I had seen and I took for
> granted. All have now dissapeared over the
> years:

> LIRR GP-38's
> LIRR Frieght
> LIRR cabooses
> Old style tickets (not gone, but QUICKLY
> dissapearing thanks to new ticket machines)

> Even simple stuff, like the antique depot
> signs that hung at Woodside until the
> rebuilding a few years back, or even WEIRD
> stuff, like the old crossing gate which was
> so long that it actually FOLDED when it went
> up. (Location--Oakwood Rd. on The Port Jeff
> branch...can anyone find me pics of it?)

> Yep....I'm getting old, too! I'm in the
> process of building a full-scale crossing
> signal in the backyard. Since when did
> modern companies like SafeTran and WC Hayes
> make older items like US&S, WRRS, and
> GRS equipment seem rare and antique?!?!?

> What else am I missing?

> Pardon me while I go color my graying hair!
> Chip

Port Huron Museum
[img]http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/imagesRRHX/Stations/GTWTappanTower1983[CharlieWhipp].jpg[/img]
tjgaffney@phmuseum.org

ge13031 · **Posted:** Mon Mar 17, 2003 1:58 pm

Oh you youngsters ...where is the operating steam shop at Collinwood, OH ...my old "summer camp", no more Niagaras ....gone is CUT and the electrics, the basement is empty and the concourses where I cheered when my uncles came back from WW2 ain't the same ...NKP Hudsons on football specials ...East Cleveland Station where I first sold NYC tickets. Lake front pennsy station, B&O roundhouseS (plural) with EM-1's in pieces or singing to themselves in the sun. NKP fast reefer trains with everyday 700's flying thru the countryside. Kerosene lanterns, creosote, hot oil and grease. 440's switching in Canada, Ten wheelers on the way freights and supurb light pacifics pulling the opening window coaches. I am afraid I can't get awfully excited when a dismal bites the dust.

lamontdc@adelphia.net

David Ackerman · **Posted:** Mon Mar 17, 2003 2:17 pm

If it makes you feel any better I envy you your experience with revenue N. American steam. I've always loved steam, and only recently begun to appreciate that which you find dismal, (out of self defense I suppose. I can't go around hating the railroads over something that happened a couple of decades before my natal day, I'd lose my mind.) But I sure wish I could see all of the steam locomotives sitting around cold and dead steamed up. Were it practical it would be a beautifull world. Just imagine, MOT, IRM, B&O, CSRM, and many others active vibrant steam shops with ten, twenty, or more steamers sitting simmering on the ready track. Wouldn't that be pretty?

david_ackerman@yahoo.com

Aarne H. Frobom · **Posted:** Mon Mar 17, 2003 2:18 pm

I might actually have to start thinking of myself as old. Here's a list I made a while back of thngs that have vanished from railroading since I started paying attention to the industry:

Cabooses
Interlocking towers, operators, and order hoops
Form 19 order pads, carbon paper, and styluses
Stations painted that awful green color inside
All those upright typewriters
Wooden baggage wagons
Freight agents
Industrial spurs
Most yards
Most branches
Those grey, wrinkle-finish teletypes
Fairmont cars
Forty-foot box cars
Forty-foot anything
Stock cars
Single-sheathed wooden box cars
Solid bearings
AB, U-12 and D-22 valves
Grain doors
Cab units
Alco and Fairbanks-Morse Diesels
One-note blat horns
Every railroad company not painted yellow
Jointed rail
Car ferries
Engine terminals
Pools of spilled fuel and gunk
Maintenance-of-way equipment without rubber tires
Steam wreck cranes
Regulation
Carrier bankruptcies
Lineside telegraph poles
Open-sided auto racks
Stations not filled by restaurants
Public timetables
The Official Guide
All Chicago stations but one
Passenger trains not run by Amtrak
Passenger cars not made by Canadians
Through-the-floor cast-iron hoppers

And I suppose I should include steam locomotives, since I can actually remember those having been a four-year-old along the GTW. This list leads me to conlude we have actually arrived at the future. Hope we like it.

Aarne Frobom

T.J. Gaffney · **Posted:** Mon Mar 17, 2003 3:50 pm

This is why the Steam Railway Institute that you guys have proposed is so important. I want my child (now 2 1/2) to experience what I couldn't until I was a teenager: a P.M. 1200 on the a mainline, and at speed to boot. Bless all of you at SRI/ MSTRP for getting this former teen so hooked he decided to make preservation and history his field of employment!

TJ

> If it makes you feel any better I envy you
> your experience with revenue N. American
> steam. I've always loved steam, and only
> recently begun to appreciate that which you
> find dismal, (out of self defense I suppose.
> I can't go around hating the railroads over
> something that happened a couple of decades
> before my natal day, I'd lose my mind.) But
> I sure wish I could see all of the steam
> locomotives sitting around cold and dead
> steamed up. Were it practical it would be a
> beautifull world. Just imagine, MOT, IRM,
> B&O, CSRM, and many others active
> vibrant steam shops with ten, twenty, or
> more steamers sitting simmering on the ready
> track. Wouldn't that be pretty?

Port Huron Museum
tjgaffney@phmuseum.org

Chip Ordway · **Posted:** Mon Mar 17, 2003 4:10 pm

> I would add to that list Amtrak's once
> ubiquitous F-40s.

Yeah, I rook my first LD trips behind them. Now, all I have to do is drive to Albany/Rennselaer, NY, and walk to the platform to see a nice up close view of about ten or so in a dead line, along with one of those dead TurboTrains.

Just think.....20 yrs from now....people will be lamenting about newly-dead GE's!

ordway1440@aol.com

Ted Miles · **Posted:** Tue Mar 18, 2003 1:18 pm

I waalk aboard a ship built in 1886 and in commercial operation until 1930. A working life of some 50 odd years.

As a child I left a long Island Tailroad Station then 60 years old in a at least 40 years old.

today a diesel is lucky to see 20 and a passenger car maybe even less. It is not just our computers that are speeding up! Life of transit items gets shorter every year. I think a wake up call to preservations in any field: TIME IS FLYING!

Seek out what is important today not tomorrow!

Ted

ted_miles@nps.gov

Pete · **Posted:** Tue Mar 18, 2003 8:35 pm

> Yep....I'm getting old, too! I'm in the
> process of building a full-scale crossing
> signal in the backyard. Since when did
> modern companies like SafeTran and WC Hayes
> make older items like US&S, WRRS, and
> GRS equipment seem rare and antique?!?!?

Don't get too worried. Except for the plastics and company logo, SafTran's plug in signal relays are *identical* to GRS type Bs, which date from the mid 1930s.

ge13031 · **Posted:** Tue Mar 18, 2003 8:43 pm

> Don't get too worried. Except for the
> plastics and company logo, SafTran's plug in
> signal relays are *identical* to GRS type
> Bs, which date from the mid 1930s.

And Adlake will still make you a good kerosene lantern ... now if we only had a good source of "coal oil"

lamontdc@adelphia.net